Anti-Racist Library Finds Home At St. Pete's Green Bench Brewing

ST. PETERSBURG, FL — A new anti-racist library has found a home at Green Bench Brewing, launching Sunday during an event at the brewery hosted by Promote Anti Racism St. Pete.

The organization got its start in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of a white police officer in Minnesota. Initially, the group handed out yard signs to St. Pete residents so they could show their support of the protest movement that grew out of Floyd’s death.

“We started with the yard signs because it was like, how do we show support without actually being physically at the protests because of COVID and the Florida summer? What do we do? So, we started handing out anti-racism yard signs, made by Black-owned businesses, for free,” Maddie Mahon, the organization’s co-founder, told Patch. “Then, all of a sudden, there were so many people wanting to be involved.”

As the organization grew, Mahon and Tabitha Carlson, were cautious about their community outreach.

“We call ourselves Promote Anti Racism St. Pete because we are white women. We want to make sure we’re promoting anti-racism and not being the educators ourselves,” Mahon said. “And it became, how do we take this group of mostly white women and transition them from the performative aspect to actually actively dismantling racism in their own lives.”

As they continued to distribute yard signs promoting anti-racism, they also created a lending library of books on race and racism by Black authors. These books have been lent to readers at pop-up events throughout the community, including a regular stint at the Deuces Sidewalk Market, held the second Sunday of each month.

Two years later, the library boasts nearly 100 titles. Readers can borrow them for two or three months and sign a document promising to return them before taking them home.

Among the more popular books are local titles, such as “St. Petersburg’s Historic African American Neighborhoods” by Rosalie Peck and Jon Wilson, Carlson said. “People are interested in local authors and the history of our community.”

Mahon said they’re trying to build up the number of books by local authors in their lending library.

“We’re also trying to build our library to promote Black joy. It’s so easy to get swamped by the trauma of anti-racism that you don’t focus on the joy and the humanity,” she said.

Carlson knows first-hand how anti-racist books and education can bring communities together. Growing up in northern Minnesota, St. Petersburg’s diverse community was eye-opening for her.

“It was a bit of a culture shock to me, and I will admit, at first, I was a bit afraid of intermingling with people that didn’t look like me and didn’t represent me, because I didn’t know,” she said. “The way that I was able to work through that was by educating myself and actually taking the steps to learn about different people, different communities, different cultures, so that I could be a better ally for different populations that were not white.”

The onus of this anti-racist education is on the individual, she added.

“While meeting certain people opened my eyes, I also don’t want to put my education on the shoulders of Black and brown people,” Carlson said. “I don’t want them to have to be the ones to show me the way. I think it’s important for us as white people to take it upon ourselves to reach out and find mays to learn on our own. And that’s what our library does. It allows people to step forward and do that learning on their own.”